Thursday, February 20, 2014

The rise of the .01 percent in America

Enough about the one percent. It's the one-one-hundredth of the one percent that's grabbing all the wealth in this country.

That green line on the graph represents the average income of the one percent since 1970. Pretty flat, right? The turquoise line on the top represents the people who are rolling in it. They've done very, very well.

Practically all the growth in average income at the top comes from stocks. Between 1992 and 2007, the average salary of a top-400 tax return doubled, but average capital gains haul increased 13X. Wages are for normal people. The richest get richer from their investments.

So when workers' wages are cut by profitable companies in order to make the shareholders happy, blame the greed of the .01 percent.